Better Than Us
by TheTorn1
Summary: She stood by his side. When Konoha came for him. For Orochimarus death. And also that of his brother. But the question is how long will her loyalty last if it isn't reciprocated. The answer... Always.


Its not very often when I actually satisfy myself with publishing the many imaginations in my head. However after pondering the concept of the story I bring to you today I can't help but act on my musings of a world in which Sakura never existed. Allow me to explain. She never existed in the sense of Konoha. She has never interacted with them or seen them. I always wondered how this would affect her overall character and I imagine it not so different. I'm gonna try and make this story as short and concrete as possible since I'm not horribly committed nor do I feel obligated. I'm simply curious of how people would see my musings. Enjoy. :)

The base was always desolate. Very depressing in the fact that all the poor bastards there had to live in such a cruel existence. No one could afford to be weak there because everyone was at the base for a reason. You had to be complacent and willing to do whatever you had to survive. You had to be the strongest and the smartest. Fearless and brave. Yet none carried these characteristics. They were all abandoned there or dropped off by Orochimarus cronies. Everyone was afraid. How were they supposed to be ninja when they were so young they hadn't even seen a kunai? Much less know how to use one? But that was alright. They would be trained down to their very core. In such a dog eat dog world you had to absorb the knowledge they gave you like a sponge. Sakura knew this. Yet she was suspicious. They were training them for something. She knew it wouldn't be pleasant. It only hit her how truly dark life was when she found out what.

She still remembered the day that Orochimaru came. It was a few weeks after her sixth birthday. None of them had ever seen him. Only heard his name whispered amongst the guards. It was a little bit after lunch started. She sat next to Kimimaro like she always did and sat and ate in silence. It was sort of like an unspoken connection between the two. Mutual respect without saying it. No one had anything to talk about anyway. She could feel his aura before he came. It was enough to knock the breath out of her. It was malicious and cruel. She was sure everyone could feel it but when he actually walked into the dining hall was when they gave him their full attention. She took in his features. He wss pale like he was death reincarnated. His eyes were snake like. She knew without anyone having to say anything that it was Orochimaru.. The guards bowed to him. And they quickly told us to throw our meals away and hurry up for our training session. One of the weaker ones was Toshi. He was only five yet he was shaking like a leaf from fear alone. I stood up slowly from my seat in the back wall corner. Kimimaro coughed loudly. He was always sick but he didn't let that get in the way of his training. I took his tray because his coughing fit was so bad and threw it away for him. He said thank you. I nodded.. The guards stood near the entrance making sure that all of us made it out. Me and Kimimaro were the last ones out. Orochimaru was assessing each of us with those snake like eyes of his. I didn't look down I looked up. When his eyes caught mine I stopped. I would not show fear. I would not be afraid. I would not allow him the privilege of seeing my fear. I stopped in front of him nearly making Kimimaro hit my back.

"Your Orochimaru." I said.

He smiled ." And how would a little girl such as yourself know that."

I didn't answer him. I merely stared and after a couple seconds of looking him in the eye I said.

"I thought you would be taller." Not bothering to look at him anymore after that I left with a small smirk on my face. Kimimaro laughed and tried to hide it and failed miserably. Whatever we had ahead of us we would face head on.

The guards had all of us line up in a row outside in the training ground. Me and Kimimaro were at the end because we were the last ones out. Orochimaru and the guards all stood in front of us. Orochimaru spoke. He said we were going to play a game. My heart dropped down into my feet. This wasn't good. He told us of a battle royale. We all had to participate and that there were only six winners. One kid raised his hand. He asked what happened to the people their battle. Orochimaru only smiled his sick little smile and told us that we die. It was silence. There was an outburst after that. One of the kids near the front of the row.

"You can't just kill ISNT FAIR! What was the point of having us train for so long just to kill us?!"

"Oh dear child you don't understand. I won't be executing you at all. No that's much too cruel. You all will be killing each other for me." Silence. Just silence. He told us all to get a partner. That's who we would be fighting first. And that's who you would be possibly killing. Toshi was the weakest. Without a doubt he would die first. Only then in that moment did I realize how cruel these people had made us. Everyone tried partnering with Toshi with promises of a quick death and that it wouldn't hurt at all. I heard a girl crying asking god why he had did this to us. Orochimaru only watched on in silence. The smile was gone. He was just staring at us watching our reactions. Kimimaro nudged my hand knocking me out of my Orochimaru trance. He held his hand out for me and I grabbed it. There. I had my partner. I looked on at the others still squabbling about who would be killing who. Trying to pick the weakest out of the group. It was like me and Kimimaro weren't even there. We were just looking in. I looked down at out joined hands and then at Orochimaru again. Better yo get it over with now.. I dragged Kimimaro in front of Orochimaru. He slowly drifted his eyes away from the group to look down at us. He didn't say anything just waited. I looked at Kimimaro again and he gave one of his tiny smiles. The rare ones.

"We're ready." I told him.

"Ready for what child?"

"Ready to fight."

It was as if time stopped at that moment. He was looking at me again with that assessing cynical gaze. I held his gaze not blinking. I don't even know if I was breathing at that point. He knew that we were dead serious. No one noticed our little heart to heart at the moment. All of the others were too focused on living. H turned toward one of the guards to his left.

"Take them too my chamber."

We were stealthily lead out of the outdoor training ground and back inside. After twisting through mazes of hallways we came to the what was presumably Orochimaru's office. We were lead inside and told to wait till the rest came. The guard left and the clicking of the lock setting in place was heard. I let go of Kimimaros hand and walked around the office to explore when I heard a soft sobbing. Kimimaro was crying.. I looked at him. He couldn't have been afraid could he? No. That's when I realized those were tears of joy when I saw one of the widest grins break out across his face. It was only then I realized what the point of all this was. Orochimaru was weaning us out. No one was going to fight anyone. He was only choosing those who came up to him who weren't afraid to fight. I felt myself tear up a little at this. I grabbed his hand again and sat next to Kimimaro on a luscious red couch. It was about three minutes later when two more came in. It was Karin and some other girl. Then the last two came in two minutes after that. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Toshi sent in alone. I asked him where his partner was. He said as afraid of he was of Orochimaru it was now when he realized his peers scared him more. He asked Orochimaru himself to pick his partner. When Orochimaru asked why Toshi told him that he knew he would probably be easy to beat‚ but he wasn't going to give them the oppurunity of making his death painstakingly easy. I smiled. Toshi deserved to be here. I waited a little bit longer for the sixth person to come but no one ever did. Instead Orochimaru came. He sat at the desk at the front of the room and just stared at us. We waited for him to speak first bit he never did. I asked where the sixth person was. After sitting in silence for so long my voice was loud and unexpected. The girl Karin came with actually jumped. He promptly ignored my question.

"Do any of you know what the purpose of that little test was?" Karin answered first.

"I do Orochimaru-sama. It was to see who was balls enough to stand up to you and get whatever the hell that was over with." Orochimaru smiled. This time it seemed genuine. He wasn't trying to scare us anymore. He was trying to be comforting.

"Can you all please tell me your names."

"Toshi Namakura."

"Karin."

"Kaga Morimoto."

"Kimimaro Kaguya"

"Sakura Haruno."

He was pleased. I could tell. One of the guards came in at that moment. He said that they were done with cleanup. said excellent and dismissed him. He told all of us to stand and up and that we had to leave. Karin asked where were they going. Orochimaru smiled at us one last time and said.

"We're leaving here of course‚ love. Its time for all of your real training to begin." After that we all walked in silence. A chapter in our lives were over and a new one had just begun.

A/N Yeah so that's basically it..I hope my writing style isn't too confusing especially given the fact that I typed all of this literally on my phone. Feel free to take this story and criticize the hell out of it. Also I won't be regularly updating only when I feel a new idea pop up. Review if ya want and the for taking the time to read this :)


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